Project Maelstorm
by RFDN
Summary: Naruto is different from everyone else around him and it's more than just the fox. Follow Naruto as searches for his origins and purpose. Currently Teen rating for later violence and mature content. Slight cross over in history and mechanics.


**I don't own Naruto.**

**Any original: characters, plot structures, and world mechanics featured in this story are mine.**

**I will not be saying this again as it is just annoying to both do and read each chapter.**

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><p><strong><span>Peaceful Slumber?<span>**

_It's a sunny day, a perfect day for children to be playing at the park. A light breeze brushes the skin of those outside as the parents gossip and catch-up with each other on their breaks from missions. Light fluffy clouds soar above as young couples meet one another falling even farther in love._

_Today is a seemingly blessed and peaceful day in Kohona, and as such, most would never see the pain and tragedies that happen today like every other day. Many would never note the deaths of the brave souls doing their best to make their homes safe. Few would ever mention the sacrifices given in blood and sweat by the ninja's of all different ranks to gain strength for themselves and their goals. The majority would never comment on the policies being devised by the Hokage this day with his two advisers._

_Barely a handful of people even pay attention to the saddening scene before the eyes of the whole village. Even less would do something about it._

_A boy with shining blue semi-silted eyes, with a light green ring around his pupil fading into the remaining of his iris, sits in the shade of a tree watching the children, which he knows he cannot play with, enjoy the innocence of their youth. His second hand worn grey shirt rests against the soft bark pushing slightly into his back as he watches two boys play with sticks in a mock sword fight. His long faded brown shorts protect the majority of his legs from the grass tickling him as a soft breeze ruffles his hair keeping the temperature down._

_The blond boy watches the other children play with a small amount of envy and anguish visible on his face. "I wish I could be just like them." he whispers seeing all the smiles on the children's faces, a few parents' glare at him as they notice him which only reminds him of his obstacles to make friends._

_He sighs as he begins to get up heading towards a more wooded area where he can work out his anger, without the pesky ANBU that watch over him interfering. He turns to face the darker forest taking the first of many steps into the all encompassing darkness of the forest._

_"SNAP!" he hears a stick break. He instantly turns expecting to see the likely older adult move to attack him for some reason unknown to him._

_He does not see an angry adult though. No he faces a redheaded girl his own age with startling sea foam green eyes. "Hi my names Kasumi wanna play?" she asks holding out her hand._

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><p>"BRING BRING BRING" Rings through the room containing a blond boy with spiky hair, mainly flowing into ripple patterns pointing behind him.<p>

"Another day towards reaching it… I guess." He murmurs as he begins shifting to stop his windup alarm clock.

He then sits up shaking his head slightly to clear his head and further wake himself up uncaringly showing his uncovered muscular chest, arms, and stomach to the empty room. He gets off his low rising bed in his small room to head to closet to get one of his standard sets of clothes before heading to his very manual shower only a door down his small hall.

He strips off his pants and boxers placing them into the bin. He mentally notes that he'll need to visit the Laundromat tomorrow. He steps into the shower and after pumping the foot pump five times turns on the water, letting cool liquid fall over his form for a moment, coating him before soaping himself up and then repeating the process. He then dries off his body, slipping on his black pants. He then dries his hair completely before slipping on his sleeveless blue sweater.

He heads back out to the hallway reaching its open end leading to the kitchen/ living room of his wooden house. The boy cooks himself a relatively healthy meal, ingredients from his ice chest, on his portable gas range before eating his fill, washing his dishes in a small tub.

The boy returns to his room gathering his black belt, steel square buckle, with his supply pouch and standard weapon holders attached. He puts on a leather cord necklace, with a box on the end, hidden a moment later by his long neck sweater. He finally attaches a worn black bracelet, with a red stone embedded into it, on his left wrist.

He then collects all his water jugs and tubs used to store water, and puts on his black combat boots before heading out of his small house into the surrounding forest to empty the containers before heading to the nearby stream to refill the jugs. He returns to his house replacing the water containers and grabbing his school supplies needed for the first day of a new year of lessons (writing utensil, current bingo book, and current map of the nations) and then leaves trying to remember why this year is suppose to be different.

An hour later the boy is sitting alone inside of the classroom waiting for this year's initial class to enter so that they can then be divided into their specialties once again having him the lone close-range ken-jutsu user and another year of solitary education.

He fiddles with a kunai to pass the time reflecting on some of the advice given to him by his teachers for the last three years for some of his weaker subjects; mainly chakra control. "Don't give up" and "Try again" were among the most prominent.

About twenty minutes pass by before the next student enters.

A girl with long black hair wearing a lavender long sleeved blouse and black pants instantly catches the attention of the blond boy. The boy instantly goes on guard as he has never seen her before and he has had more than enough run-ins with unknown spiteful villagers to know that if he is not careful then she could harm him. There are too many ANBU watching him for him to kill the person and get away.

"Hello, who are you? I've never seen you in class before." She asks upon seeing him walking closer to his location in the back of the room.

"It's polite to introduce yourself first before asking for another's name." The boy answers neutrally noticing her white pupil-less eyes and soft features.

"My names Hyuuga Hinata, I'm part of the medic class with scouting and taijutsu being my secondary concentrations." The boy mentally shakes his head hearing her give off a list of her skills so willingly.

"Names Naruto, frontline combat focus" Naruto, states this neutrally already seeing the question forming in her mind.

"What's your surname?" Naruto sighs as this question comes again.

"I don't have one." He answers with no emotion discernable from his tone.

"Did your parents disown you?" She asks with a look of sorrow appearing on her face.

"No…"

As Hinata looks at him in interest, begging for him to continue, he sighs. "… I don't have any."

"Oh… I'm so sorry for bringing up bad mem—"

He cuts her off before finishing "It doesn't matter I've had years to get over it." His voice is cold and hostile when the door opens again revealing another blond, this time a girl who seems to love purple a little too much.

"Hinata, we're supposed to meet at Shizune-sensei's office remember. It was your idea to get the scope on the competition from her." The blond girl states without truly noticing Naruto.

"Ino-chan…" Hinata faces the girl "There are two things you need to note, one I suggested that if you two wanted more information on the other students then you should ask one of the sensei with Shizune as our main sensei being the most likely choice, a week ago. Two, I was talking to someone else here. If you really want to know about our competition then you might as well just wait for the other students to get here and ask them yourself." Naruto just looks down shaking his head as both girls turn their attention to him.

"Hey were there any big fish in your class last year?" Naruto mentally bangs his head on the desk before him as he composes his answer in his head.

"No one stood out in my class; I was the average in it."

"See it was pointless to ask a fellow student. Come on let's just go over to sensei's office before she gets pissed at us" Hinata looks back towards Naruto before making her decision and heading out the door.

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><p><em>A young Naruto stands in the shade of the tree's facing the redheaded girl with a generous offer, maybe too generous for him. Her smile is infectious though and in a less than a minute he feels muscles rarely used begin to strain themselves in a similar display. "Yeah I would love to! My names Naruto" He takes her hand letting her lead him into the light filled playground.<em>

_"Hey I bet I can swing higher than you." She exclaims as they reach the sand pit._

_"Maybe, maybe not; let's see." Naruto replies back smiling as he matches her stride now making them neck and neck in an impromptu race. A grin rested on his face the entire time._

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><p>Naruto is pulled out of his memories of the past as all the students for this class enter in what seems to be a tide wave. The room is loud alive with conversations but like all the previous years he is alone in the shadows of the room. No eyes rest on him for more than a single moment.<p>

A teacher enters the room minutes later and sits in his chair seemingly reviewing his lesson plan for the day. He has brown hair held in a pineapple like ponytail and his true defining mark being a horizontal scar across his face. "Ok now quiet down." He states a couple of minutes after entering. The students do not follow the request.

He shakes his head slightly at the dismissal before taking a deep breath. "Shut up and face me!" he yells at the top of his lungs startling a few people other than Naruto, but getting the attention of the entire class.

"Ok, now that we are all ready for this I'll begin by letting you all know that this year unlike the last three years you will all attend the same classes to better your interaction with one another as possible team members than just rivals. Now if you hadn't noticed this class of 30 students is the only class for this year group, this means that unlike all your previous years where there were multiple groups that competed for the spots in the next year's class's you are the final candidates for the position on ninja's. This is your final year before you can enter the forces use it wisely." He looks sternly at a few boys around the room.

"Now that I have given you that piece of information for thought let me introduce myself to those of you who haven't been under my care. My name is Umino Iruka. I will be your homeroom sensei handling your history and law portion of your education this year. Now for this year you will have a different lesson each day with specialized instructors like your previous years but unlike them you will get an equal amount of exposure to each instructor during the five day week. This is so you can get much better acquainted with each type of field and specialty used. On Saturdays or Sundays you will be working with your specialty instructor the entire day." The man then begins a long boring lecture on what sounds like the third ninja war.

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><p>Yamanaka Ino was not having a good day so far. For the last two weeks the academy had been closed, which was in her opinion a blessing as basically 50 weeks of lessons 6 days a week was a very tiring schedule without even factoring in homework.<p>

The problem for her though, at the start of the day, was after getting her body to finally let her sleep in for a few hours of luxurious sleep she now had to once again become accustomed to waking up at the, in her opinion, god forsaken hour of six in the morning so she can take a shower, eat breakfast, choose and dress in her outfit for the day, and finally meet with her friends before class starts at eight. As one would most likely guess her planned schedule didn't work out quite like she thought it would.

She woke up at seven to her father's persistent knocking and him yelling through the door that breakfast was in ten minutes. She hadn't had time to take her normal long hot shower to truly wake herself. She didn't even have time to wash her long hair as it would take too long to dry. She was forced to rush when choosing her clothing for the day which led her to just grabbing one of her many normal purple outfits that was slightly too small around certain parts of her body forcing her to bind her breasts rather than wearing her dressy bra, significantly reducing her attention gathering appeal for the male half of the class {Sasuke}.

Breakfast was just tense for some reason she couldn't figure out. Her father seemed to be lost in thought most of the time during the meal glancing at her occasionally with worry apparent in his eyes.

It was probably about her grades from the previous year, she had been the third highest ranked female ninja in her class but if you factor in that her friends were first and second place (both being members of powerful clans) then one would note that she was well above average. She was listed for her class like her friend Hinata as a medic in training with, in her case, a background of interrogation and capture/support mainly her clan taught skills as her secondary specialties. At the end of the meal she was forced to rush off as breakfast had taken longer than she had allotted for making her late to spend some time with her friends before class would start not including Kasumi's plan to get info on their possible competition this year, as the four previous classes for their age were supposedly down to one for the students with a real chance entering the forces.

She met at the designated spot of the class roster seeing neither of her friends there, but she noted the swirl next to Kasumi's name on the single list for her year's homeroom meaning that she had been there. She had about thirty minutes now to find both of her friends before class started. Luckily for her there were only two places they could be… in the classroom early or Shizune-sensei's office. Kasumi had been especially anxious the last week or so about learning about who the possible competition for this year were. She had been like this every year though only to a lesser degree, probably just a case of last year jitters like Shizune-sensei had told them about over the years under her meticulous eyes. She noted the classrooms number which was on the path to Shizune-sensei's office.

'310… 311…312 that's it' Ino thinks as she opens the door seeing Hinata chat up a blond boy, with a very good build wearing dark clothes. 'Damn it, we made a pact to not make moves on the guys. They're supposed to come to us.' She thinks seeing the scene and remembering the advice given to them by Snake. "Hinata, we're supposed to meet at Shizune-sensei's office remember. It was your idea to get the scope on the competition from her." She can't stop the irritation from flowing into her words as her bustier friend once again gets more attention from the male population that she does.

"Ino-chan…" The blond sees her friends face noting the lack of a blush or angry look telling her that her initial assessment of the situation was incorrect, especially after noting the blond boy's stoic emotionless face. "There are two things you need to note, one I suggested that if you two wanted more information on the other students then you should ask one of the sensei with Shizune as our main sensei being the most likely choice, a week ago. Two, I was talking to someone else here. If you really want to know about our competition then you might as well just wait for the other students to get here and ask them yourself." Ino nods understanding the underling comment as an "I tried to get some information from him but he weaseled out of answering." Well that left one option for her to use other than the direct approach or the long annoying process of gaining info…

"Hey were there any big fish in your class last year?" Ask about someone else hoping they get flustered and tell you more information than needed about both them and the subject.

"No one stood out in my class; I was the average in it." He answers smoothly with a firm tone. 'What the freaking hell even the quiet boy Shino gave more information than that when asked that question!' She mentally rants as her irritation is rising to higher levels.

"See it was pointless to ask a fellow student. Come on let's just go over to sensei's office before she gets pissed at us" 'or I snap and do something I really shouldn't.' She watches Hinata look between her and the boy for a second before following her out to find their last friend leaving the boy alone in the room.

As they walk to the room Ino looks directly at her friend asking the question she knows her friend is expecting. "So what did you learn about him?" her curiosity easily bleeding though her words.

"His name is Naruto, he has no family what so ever, probably killed in the Kyuubi attack and he is a front line fighter."

"Wow that's not much at all, but maybe Choji knows him he's a taijutsu specialist after all. They probably were in the same class." Hinata frowns slightly at that thought as Ino's family's friends would likely have told them about a boy as seemingly interesting as him.

"He might know Naruto, but I don't think Naruto is a taijutsu specialist." This catches Ino off-guard because what other specialty would be frontline oriented.

"Why do you say that?"

"His clothes while made for protection were sleeveless hinting at his need for more maneuverability for his arms when fighting. Most taijutsu specialists would wear looser or skin tight clothing to keep the resistance down for movement. Also he was wearing fingerless gloves without metal plates or knuckles to increase the damage of his punches. Those types of gloves are normally used by ninjutsu focused ninja's as they offer protection while still allowing the maximum dexterity for the fingers." Ino frowns at thought.

"I don't think he is a ninjutsu user since the academy doesn't have a specialized class for that. What does that leave us then?"Hinata shrugs as they reach room 410 Shuzine's office.

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><p><em>"Catch me if you can!" A red headed five year old yells as the blond boy chases her around the small clearing near the tree she found him at. She was having more fun that she could even remember today as she finally got to do what she wanted to always do when playing with kids from Dad's friends' families. They had a contest to see who could swing the highest, built sandcastles, and currently were playing tag.<em>

_"Got Ya!" The boy yells finally taping her back. Kasumi turns to face the boy with the biggest smile on his face._

_"So what happens now?" He asks as she develops a very mischievous grin before taping him on the chest, not noticing his flinch._

_"You're it." She takes off running looking back to see the boy's face as he processes this new development._

_"Hey, No fair!" _

_She sticks out her tongue "Then dodge next time."_

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><p>Ino opens the door to the room before her, revealing the apprentice to Tsunade of the Sannin, head of Kohona's hospital, wearing her black kimono. Near her stands the daughter of the Fourth Hokage and the deceased Red death, Kasumi Namikaze.<p>

"… sorry, but I really can't help you even if I knew who you were talking about." Shuzine tells the red headed girl.

"Yeah I understand its part of the medic code right." The girl sighs out in disappointment, neither of the rooms occupants had noticed the door open.

Ino looks at her friend for a moment taking in her current look of dark green pants and a navy blue blouse with red angle wings print on the back and a few black S like designs on the bottom trim and around the neck in the shape of a chain.

"Oh is there anything I can help you two with Hinata-chan, Ino-chan?" Kasumi turns to face her friends with a somber look on her face for a spare second before resting her sea foam colored eyes on her friends.

"Um do you know anything about a boy named Naruto, Shuzine-sensei?" Hinata asks as Ino ponders what could have made Kasumi have that somber look on her normally happy face. She doesn't catch the look of surprise on Kasumi's face.

"Does he have a surname?"

"No, he's an orphan who probably lost his parents in the Kyuubi's attack."

"Can you describe him?" A wide eyed Kasumi asks, with a multitude of conflicting emotions on her face.

"Yeah blond hair, hazel eyes, wears dark colors, and has developed muscles." Hinata replies

"That's all you have?" Kasumi questions a little harshly getting a dark look in response.

"If you want a better picture then just see him in class," Ino snaps back after Hinata looks down.

"Sorry about that Hinata, he just might be someone I haven't seen in a long time…"

"That doesn't give you the right to be rude to her Kasumi!" The redhead looks down as Ino cuts off her response.

"…"

"…"

"…"

Shuzine breaks the silence by answering the previous question asked to her. "Well I think I've heard his name a few times in the staff lounge possibly once or twice on the street, Hinata, but can't say anything besides that."

"It's ok," she replied.

"You guys should probably head for class." The students nod and head on their way in silence.

"Why are they interested in that boy?" Shuzine asks herself thinking about what she knows of the boy.

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><p><em>Evening is beginning to fall as the two children lay on the grass, panting, looking at the setting sun.<em>

_"It's so beautiful isn't it?" The red head asks the boy next to her as all the different colors spread across the sky._

_"Yeah it is." The boy then looks over to the girl and pokes her side._

_"You're it." She turns to face him smiling._

_"This was fun." He comments looking directly into her eyes seeing half of her face cascaded in shadows just like his own._

_"Friends?" she asks holding out her pinky._

_"Yeah, that sounds great." He says nodding his head._

_"We're suppose to shake pinkies, pinky promises are forever." She smiles with her eyes closed_

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><p><span>Ok; I know you are all going to be pissed at this but I'm currently stuck on my other stories right now. My normal brain storming partner for those stories has been out of contact for a while and although I literally have the overall plot of the stories in my mind they help me with the smaller details and making the interactions between characters more realistic. I am currently working on my kingdom Hearts fic, this and some others I might post at a later date that just won't leave me be until I have atleast began working on them.<span>

If anyone will volunteer to be a sounding board for any of my fics that would be appreciated.

Also to note for this story I know this chapter is kinda boring. The next two will probably be similarly boring to you action loving people but I will note that these are the introduction to this brand new world in which have changed many of the normally stable items from the Naruto-verse. Ex: Minato is alive... for now.

Please do review for both of our benefit as they help me know what you readers think and I can modify if needed.


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